Friday, December 16, 2016

The Cochecho Massacre: More Forgotten American History

Columbus and Taino Indians

Let’s get it straight: Columbus did not discover the New
World. When his little fleet arrived in 1492, the Americas were already occupied
by as many as 100,000,000 Indians. Within 500 years, European diseases had wiped
out some 90% of them. Resettlement, enslavement, and what could easily be taken
for genocide took a very heavy toll on the survivors.

Looking at that progression, it’s easy to think Native Americans were doomed as soon as the first Europeans stepped onshore.
Not quite. Around 1000 A.D., when Greenland’s Vikings tried to colonize Vinland
(coastal New England), an arrow shot into their leader’s heart by a one-footed Indian
discouraged them for good.

Vikings at Iceland

620 years passed before Englishmen created a
permanent toehold at Plymouth, Massachusetts. They succeeded primarily because
the native occupants were wiped out two years before by disease introduced by
transient fishermen. The Pilgrims were severely weakened by their own
illnesses, but Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoag tribe let them stay, and sent
the English-speaking Squanto to help the starving Pilgrims raise crops. An
American legend was born.

Squanto and Pilgrims

A half-century later New England’s tribes regretted their
tolerance. Their croplands were purchased or seized, their game shot or driven
away, and they could no longer support themselves by trapping fur or making wampum
to sell. In 1675 Massasoit’s grandson, King Philip, led aconcerted effort to
push the invaders back, but New England’s tribes were defeated by the settlers’
superior firepower. Most Wampanoags and Narragansetts were slaughtered or
enslaved, but some took shelter with other tribes.

I am in the preliminary stages of a novel about King
Philip’s War. Peni Jo Renner’s forthcoming historical novel, Cochecho, covers the aftermath of that conflict. Like my historical novels Rebel Puritan,The Reputed Wife, and The Golden Shore (coming in spring 2017), Peni is exploring
her ancestry in fiction, beginning with Puritan
Witch and Letters From Kezia, and
continuing with the doomed settlers of Cochecho in her latest work, appropriately titled Cochecho.

Wampanoag attack

That was the Indian name for Dover, site of the first
English settlement in New Hampshire. In 1676 the Christianized Pennacook
Indians were friendly with their English neighbors, but also gave refuge to
several hundred fugitive Wampanoags. Alarmed by that threat, Major Richard
Waldron asks Massachusetts for help, and two companies of militia are
dispatched to Cochecho.

Grace Hampton was only six when her parents were killed by
Indians. She and her sister are sent to live with an uncle in Cocheho. Now nine,
Grace overhears Major Waldron plotting with the militia captains, but it means
little to her.

1689 attack on Dover, NH

Nine-year-old Menane wants nothing more than comfort for his
sick grandmother when he steals a blanket at Cochecho. Grace helps him hide from
its vengeful owner. Thus begins an improbable bond which persists despite the
slaughter of Wampanoags and Pennacooks by Waldron and the militia, and through
the years until 1689, when the Pennacooks take their revenge on Major Waldron
and the other English settlers at Cochecho.

Peni Jo Renner

Peni does a terrific job of bringing Cochecho and its people
to life, both English and Native American. Both sides commit questionable acts,
but both were also capable of heroism and tenderness. Peni’s story is an
even-handed and enjoyable read, and offers a rare look into America’s forgotten
history.